Wednesday, October 12, 2005

McCreevy on the future of payments in Europe

See this speech to ddiscover:
But I also want to be clear that I am ambitious for the successful delivery of this project. In order to sustain its political backing the Commission will need to be convinced that certain objective standards are met. For example:
* It would be unacceptable if the Single Payment Market results in a general price increase and price convergence at the top of the current range;
* It would likewise be unacceptable if the Single Payment Market results in less competition, fewer providers and governance and scheme rules that are not conducive to competition;
* User expectations have to be met.


Note the word objective standards, which is used in one sentence with user expectations... And note the plans for a New Legal Framework. This includes a light supervisory regime of payment service providers. But anyone may assume that supervisors will even make light supervision a heavy burden. So this will most likely raise costs and diminish competition...

Those objective standards sound more like incompatible mathematic functions to me...